Vineland
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''Vineland'' is a 1990 novel by
Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...
, a postmodern fiction set in California, United States in 1984, the year of
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
's reelection.Knabb 2002 Through flashbacks by its characters, who have lived the sixties in their youth, the story accounts for the free spirit of rebellion of that decade, and describes the traits of the "fascistic Nixonian repression" and its
War on Drugs The war on drugs is a Globalization, global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of prohibition of drugs, drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the Unite ...
that clashed with it; and it articulates the slide and transformation that occurred in U.S. society from the 1960s to the 1980s.Vineland, p.71Patell (2001) p.129


Plot

The story is set in California, United States, in 1984, the year of
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
's reelection. After a scene in which former hippie Zoyd Wheeler dives through a window, something he is required to do yearly to keep receiving mental disability checks, the action of the novel opens with the resurfacing of federal agent Brock Vond, who (through a platoon of agents) forces Zoyd and his 14-year-old daughter Prairie out of their house. They hide from Brock, and from Hector Zuñiga (a drug-enforcement ''federale'' from Zoyd's past, who Zoyd suspects is in cahoots with Brock) with old friends of Zoyd's, who recount to the mystified Prairie the story of Brock's motivation for what he has done. This hinges heavily on Frenesi Gates, Prairie's mother, whom she has never met. In the '60s, during the height of the hippie era, the fictive College of the Surf (located in equally fictive Trasero County, said to be located between
Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...
and
San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...
in
Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
) seceded from the United States and became its own nation of hippies and dope smokers, called the People's Republic of Rock and Roll (PR³). Brock Vond, a federal prosecutor, intends to bring down PR³, and finds a willing accomplice in Frenesi. She is a member of 24fps, a militant film collective (other members of which are the people telling Prairie their story in the present), that seeks to document the "fascists'" transgressions against freedom and hippie ideals. Frenesi is uncontrollably attracted to Brock and the sex he provides, and ends up working as a double agent to bring about the killing of the de facto leader of PR³, Weed Atman (a mathematics professor who accidentally became the subject of a cult of personality). Her betrayal caused Frenesi to flee, and she has been living in witness protection with Brock's help up until the present day. Now she has disappeared. The membership of 24fps, Brock Vond, and Hector Zuñiga are all searching for her, for their various motives. The book's theme of the ubiquity of television (or the Tube) comes to a head when Hector, a Tube addict who has actually not been working with Brock, finds funding to create his pet project of a movie telling the story of the depraved sixties, with Frenesi Gates as the director, and the pomp and circumstance surrounding this big-money deal create a net of safety that allows Frenesi to come out of hiding. 24fps finds her and achieves their goal of allowing Prairie to meet her, at an enormous reunion of Frenesi's family. Weed Atman is also present at the reunion as one of many Thanatoids in the book—people who are in a state that is "like death, but different." Brock, nearly omnipotent with D.E.A. funds, finds Prairie with a surveillance helicopter, and tries to snatch her up to get to Frenesi, but while he is hovering above her on a ladder, the government abruptly cuts all his funding due to a loss of interest in funding the war on drugs because people have begun playing along willingly with the antidrug ideal, and his helicopter pilot flies him away. Later he tries to come after Prairie and Frenesi again, but is killed when he crashes his helicopter. The family reunion allows everyone to tie up all their loose ends, and the book ends with Prairie looking into the beginning of a life no longer controlled by the fall-out of the past.


Technique

Throughout the novel, Pynchon's technique is recognizable. From a cameo of Mucho Maas (from ''
The Crying of Lot 49 ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-ol ...
'') to a bizarre episode hinting at
Godzilla is a fictional monster, or '' kaiju'', originating from a series of Japanese films. The character first appeared in the 1954 film ''Godzilla'' and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films produc ...
, Pynchon's "zaniness" pervades the novel. For example, Pynchon laces the book with ''
Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' references. He has his characters watch a sitcom named ''Say, Jim,'' about a starship all of whose officers "were black except for the Communications Officer, a freckled white redhead named Lieutenant O'Hara." The numerous references to films rigorously include the year of release in a manner unusual for a work of fiction. Several characters are Thanatoids, victims of a particular
karmic Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptively ...
imbalance. In addition, the novel is replete with female ninjas,
astrologers Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...
,
marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...
smokers, television addicts, musical interludes (including the theme song of ''
The Smurfs ''The Smurfs'' (french: Les Schtroumpfs; nl, De Smurfen) is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small, blue, humanoid creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. ''The Smurfs'' was first created and in ...
'') and
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
s drawn from ''Star Trek''.


Critical reception

''Vineland'' received mixed reviews. Author Tobias Meinel asserted in a 2013 essay that the novel "has led many critics to focus on its shift in style and content and to read it either as 'Pynchon Lite' or as a critical commentary on contemporary American culture."
Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Wes ...
wrote a positive review in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' following the book's 1990 release, praising it as "free-flowing and light and funny and maybe the most readily accessible piece of writing the old Invisible Man ever came up with." He called it "that rarest of birds" that, "at the end of the Greed Decade," is "a major political novel about what America has been doing to itself, to its children, all these many years." Although he praised Pynchon's light-yet-deadly touch at tackling the nightmares of the present rather than the past, Rushdie acknowledged that the book "either grabs you or it doesn't." British literary critic
Frank Kermode Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work '' The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction'' and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing. He was ...
was disappointed by the book, feeling that it lacked the "beautiful ontological suspense" of ''
The Crying of Lot 49 ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-ol ...
'' or the "extended fictive virtuosity" of ''
Gravity's Rainbow ''Gravity's Rainbow'' is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, ...
''. He did acknowledge that it was "recognisably from the same workshop" as Pynchon's previous outings but found it to be more incomprehensible.
Brad Leithauser Brad E. Leithauser (born February 27, 1953) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and teacher. After serving as the Emily Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College and visiting professor at the MFA Program for Poets & Writ ...
concurred, writing in ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' that ''Vineland'' was "a loosely packed grab bag of a book" that recalled what was weakest about the author's canon and failed to extend or improve upon it. In the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'',
James McManus } James "Jim" McManus (born March 22, 1951) is an American teacher, writer and poker player living in Kenilworth, Illinois. He is a professor in the Master of Fine Arts program for writers at the Art Institute of Chicago. Poker and ''Positi ...
posited that while inveterate Pynchon readers likely would unfavorably compare the book to ''Gravity's Rainbow'', it was a manageable book with strong prose that succeeded as an arch and blackly amusing assault on the desires of Republican America. Film critic
Terrence Rafferty Terrence Rafferty is a film critic who wrote regularly for ''The New Yorker'' during the 1990s. His writing has also appeared in ''Slate'', ''The Atlantic Monthly'', ''The Village Voice'', ''The Nation'', and ''The New York Times''. For a number ...
admired the novel, and in ''The New Yorker'' called it "the oldest story in the world—the original sin and the exile from Paradise,"Cowart, David. but author Sean Carswell later contended that aside from Rafferty and Rushdie, initial reviews of ''Vineland'' "run the gamut from slightly miffed to outright hostile."Carswell, Sean.
Edward Mendelson __NOTOC__ Edward Mendelson (born March 15, 1946) is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is the literary executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden and the au ...
's review in ''
The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...
'' was mostly positive, however; although he found the plot to be tangled and tedious, he praised Pynchon's "intellectual and imaginative energy" and called the work "a visionary tale" whose world was "richer and more various than the world of almost any American novel in recent memory." He also commended the book's "comic extravagance," claiming that "no other American writer moves so smoothly and swiftly between the extremes of high and low style." Mendelson additionally noted that ''Vineland'' was more integrated with its emotions and feelings than Pynchon's previous novels, and
Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for ''The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008, when he retired. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has ...
wrote in the ''
Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by a ...
'' that it was the author's most hopeful work yet. That hopefulness was also mentioned by Rushdie, who believed that the book suggested community, individuality, and family as counterweights to the repressive Nixon-Reagan era, but Dan Geddes opined in 2005 in ''The Satirist'' that the book's "happy ending" was surprising, given its overarching warning about a growing
police state A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exe ...
. Contrarily, Rushdie found that the shocking final scene lent itself to a morally ambiguous ending, and he felt that the novel expertly held a balance between light and dark throughout its entire duration.


Notes


References

*
Ken Knabb Ken Knabb (born 1945) is an American writer, translator, and radical theorist, known for his translations of Guy Debord and the Situationist International. His own English-language writings, many of which were anthologized in ''Public Secrets'' ...
(2002)
Raptor, Rapist, Rapture: The Dark Joys of Social Control in Thomas Pynchon's Vineland
' *Patell, Cyrus R. K. (2001)
Negative liberties: Morrison, Pynchon, and the problem of liberal ideology
'


Further reading

* Pynchon, Thomas R. ''Vineland.'' (Boston: Little, Brown, 1990). * Rushdie, Salman.
Still Crazy After All Those Years
, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' January 14, 1990. * Geddes, Dan.
Pynchon's ''Vineland:'' The War On Drugs and the Coming American Police-State
, ''The Satirist'' * Gordon, Andrew.

. ''The Vineland Papers: Critical Takes on Pynchon's Novel,'' ed. Geoffrey Green, Donald J. Greiner, and Larry McCaffery (Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994): 167–178. * Thoreen, David.

, ''Oklahoma City University Law Review'' 24, No. 3 (1999). * John Diebold and Michael Goodwin
''Babies of Wackiness''
a "reader's guide to ''Vineland''"


External links


''Vineland'' Wiki''Vineland'' Cover Art Over Time @ ThomasPynchon.com
{{Authority control 1990 novels Novels by Thomas Pynchon Fictional populated places in California Novels set in California Mendocino County, California Postmodern novels Fiction set in 1984